Generate a self signed ssl certificate

To generate a self signed certificate without a password just need to issue 3 commands:

openssl genrsa -out server.key 1024
openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt

server.key -> key
server.csr => certificate signing request
server.crt => certificate

If you want to have a password protected key file just add in the first command the des3 switch:

openssl genrsa -des3 -out server.key 1024

But remember that to use it, you will be prompted with the password challenge (not a very good ideia on an Apache restart…).